EMOTIONAL
IDENTIFICATION DISORDERS
The emotional identification disorder causes us to project a
false self. Our inner self, or lost child, buries itself beneath
layers of protection caused by repressing emotion. The false
personality resulted from the skewing of the person's perception, and
projected itself as the new identity. This results is a personality
disorder in which the emotional trauma disables the true identity.
These people do not know they are captive and cannot free their inner
self. The disorder misleads them because the concepts of self as an
emotion gives them an identity, and they then see themselves as an
emotion.
The following is true of emotional and identification
disorders: We perceive our core identity as a state of being. The
identity is self-generating. When the sense of identity remains stuck
in the emotion, the feelings are not identifiable, which causes a
sense of hopelessness or exhilaration. We may sense that we are
falling apart. The effect may cause a sense of splitting. Through
this experience the person may learn that he cannot trust himself, and
this will result in a sense of absence and emptiness.
The major roadblock is the disabling of free choice.
Mental and emotional abuse may result in the disabling of the will.
When people disregard a person's emotions, they sometimes lose the
ability to feel or choose. The result is often a sense of
hopelessness and learned helplessness. The emotional energy cannot
discharge and the interaction between the mind and will hindered. The
result is confusion. The person loses the ability to reason clearly
and think rationally, which results in stifling the intellect and
freezing emotions.
The will is dependent on the reasoning and judgment of the
mind to cause action. With the will disabled, severe problems are
usually the end result. Some of the problems are: the will becomes
powerless, the ‘fight or flight’ response, the autonomous preservation
response diminishes, the will tries to control everything, and they
become reactive, impulsive, and operate in extremes of all
or nothing.
There is a vast difference when dealing with the emotions of
guilt and shame. Guilt does not directly reflect upon one's identity
or diminish one's sense of personal worth. The emotionally based
identity offers no hope or repair, only a sense of hopelessness. The
belief system of the counselee is of the utmost importance. If the
person is a Christian, they are ‘a part of a new creation ‘in
Christ’’. However, if the person is not a follower of Christ, they
still have the Adamic nature and have no power over sin. Therefore,
there is no way to completely overcome a negative image totally.
We are spiritual beings in an earthly body. We are on a
journey that God meant to expand and enhance our life. Life is about
growth, expansion, newness, and creativity. Spirituality is about our
identity ‘in Christ’. The thrust of our Victory is in our
identification and position ‘in Christ’.
To be a Christian is to have an inner self life and a life
from within extending outwards. As Christians, we have a new identity
‘in Christ’; we've become the children of God. Freedom depends solely
on what God has accomplished, in and through the work of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Being ‘in Christ’ requires no measurement nor does it
depend on our performance and achievement. Jesus becomes our
righteousness, justification, and sanctification.
We foster emotions through significant relationships. We
learn our value of self from a family system. An emotional disorder
or identity disorder comes from the learned values and behavior of the
family system. Iniquity is multi-generational passing down to us from
generation to generation. Iniquity describes the tendencies we
inherit from our ancestors. We have an inborn tendency to repeat the
same offenses or mistakes until we root out the source. When we are
born, our identity comes from being born in Adam, and until God renews
us spiritually, we are prisoners of sin and death. Our spiritual
death came out of the action and behavior of Adam. Our physical death
is a law of nature while the corrupt nature is the result of being
separated from God because of Adam and Eve's disobedience. Our
identity is now based on who we are ‘in Christ’.
The result of this original separation from God will be a
lack of intimacy, a flawed and defective nature, and the inability to
control our desires, needs, and drives. Until we reconcile with God,
the Adamic nature skews all of our relationships. Carnal
relationships maintain non-intimacy through means of control, such as
poor communication, vying for control, withdrawal, blaming and
cofluence. Cofluence is the agreement never to disagree. Cofluence
is pseudo-intimacy.
Emotionally based people focus only on their own ache
(problems). They cannot take care of the children's needs. The
children grow up with their own emotionally based value system and
operate according to laws of the family social system. If the system
is rigid and closed, the enmeshed family rears children with a frozen
mindset. Society sees the result in the continuation of iniquitous
traits or characteristics throughout the successive generations.
Freedom comes when an individual breaks the self-centered cycle by
giving control to God ‘in Christ’.
EMOTIONAL
IDENTIFICATION DISORDERS
The identification of a person with an emotion may results
in a variety of maladies. The mental wards are full of people who
react out of an emotional disorder. The thought process of these
people is dillusional. They have vain imaginations and preconceived
ideas because of the fear, frustration, or pain from the past. Their
world fills them with the consequences of unforgiveness and torment.
Depression and despair are their companions. The neurotic has taken
on too much responsibility for their problems, while the psychopath
has not taken on any responsibility for their activities. Instead of
responding to their environment, these people react out of an
emotion-based identity.
There are four major consequences we have to look at when we
do not resolve an emotional issue. When we do not deal with an
emotional issue, we risk: 1) an emotional identity being formed as the
depth of the emotion is magnified and frozen; 2) having the emotional
identification become autonomous; 3) having our view of reality
skewed; and finally, 4) having internal emotional spirals made
operative.
The emotional identification disorder is beyond an attitude;
it is a personality disorder. The afflicted are in denial. They are
not aware of their own feelings and their life-style is normal for
them. Everyone around them suffers from their disorder while they
react to the emotional triggers of their tainted world. The disorder
is the result of different forms of abuse. Unfortunately, the abuse
will continue if someone does not expose the family system so that the
people will realize the need for change. To understand the dynamics of
this malady we will look closer at the development of this common
emotional disorder.
Emotional Triggers
When an emotion triggers, we can choose to respond or we can
choose to repress the emotion. If we choose to express the emotion we
release the energy. If we choose to or people force us to repress the
emotion, as in emotional abuse, the unresolved emotion remains in
storage until we resolve the issue(s). Unresolved emotions wreak
untold havoc on the body, soul, and spirit of humanity. Emotions have
a life of their own; when we repress our emotional life without reason
we suffer emotional abuse.
Emotionally repressed parents repress their children's
emotions. They cannot allow the child to express their emotions
because the child's emotions trigger the parents' emotions.
Dysfunctional families carry around unresolved emotions for
generations that wreak havoc on their members until something exposes
the wounds, they resolve the infection, and their spirits made whole.
Abandonment Through
Neglect
When parents neglect the basic needs of a child, they
receive a message that says they are not important and they lose a
sense of their own personal worth. If someone is not there for them,
they feel rejected and learn to bury the pain or react inappropriately
to gain attention. When we do not meet the needs of the child's
development issues, the emotional growth arrests at that particular
stage.
The child becomes an adult/child, where physically he is in
an adult body but developmentally he is a child. The emotionally,
mentally, and spiritually immature adult has the appetite of an empty
and needy child. The unresolved needs of the adult child are the core
of obsessive/compulsive or addictive behaviors.
When people do not meet our developmental needs, the defense
mechanism of conversion transforms any of our needs into the need for
something else. When others do not meet our needs and we perceive
rejection, we seek a substitute to ease the pain. Whatever eases the
pain becomes the agent of the addictive cycle -- alcohol, drugs, food,
etc. As a result, when people do not meet a basic need, the person
feels insecure or anxious and the inner event registers pain and
triggers the addictive cycle again. Eventually, any painful event
triggers the cycle and the primary reasons for burying the pain along
with it.
Abandonment Through
Enmeshment
Members in the family social systems use each other to
balance the components of rules and roles. The more dysfunctional the
system, the more closed and rigid the rules and roles it assigns.
Members play the roles to balance the system; they exist for the
system. The parent(s) coerce children into roles to keep it
functioning, and force children to live in an unreal environment that
the parent totally controls. There is no room for individual freedom
or self-actualization. They teach children to be totally dependent
upon the system for validation and we lose the inner child in the
quagmire of performing to keep the system functioning.
The internalized emotions create a state of suspended
animation. Whenever a person leaves the family of origin they operate
at the level of maturity previously achieved or they learn to mirror
the new family's system. If we are to reach emotional, mental, and
spiritual maturity, we have to properly meet a person's fundamental
needs. They also need properly instruction in how to get the needs
met. These adults need reparenting. These people need their basic
foundation restructured. If a person does not escape the family of
origin and lay a new foundation, they will begin a dysfunctional
family upon their marriage.
EMOTIONAL
IDENTIFICATION DISORDER
Neurosis manifests itself from taking on too much
responsibility while the causes of behavior disorders come from not
taking on enough responsibility. When an emotion internalizes, we
find our life and identity in an emotion. We readily see the
consequences in the following personality disorders:
Symptoms Of Neurosis
False self -- one loses all awareness of who one really is
and defense mechanisms prevent the exposure of self to self, creating
a false self. The paradox of neurotics we may see in extreme polar
opposites such as super-achiever or under-achiever.
Dependency -- the essence dependency is a distortion of
relationships that are interdependent with the object of their
addiction. The object can be drugs, alcohol, food, a relationship, or
behavior. It denies self, validation, esteem and bonding;
internalizing every aspect of the personality.
Personality disorders -- the categories of emotional illness
related to the following complaints unify under the internalized
emotion of shame. The complaints are: 1) self image disturbance; 2)
difficulty identifying and expressing one's own individualized
thoughts, wishes, and feelings, thus automatically regulating
self-esteem; 3) difficulty with self-assertion. All of these symptoms
are characteristics of the dependent personality, clinical depression,
schizoid phenomena, and borderline personality.
Obsessive/Compulsive Behaviors -- Each repetition of the
life-damaging consequences is in response to the pain the person is
trying to alleviate. The addictive cycle reproduces itself until the
truth sets the authentic self free. In the false belief system, the
person internalizes causes with distorted thinking and becomes
obsessed with ‘doing’ instead of ‘being’. The addict measures
self-worth on their behavior resulting in the damaging consequences of
their particular disorder. The addict internalizes the emotional
trauma created by their acting out, which intensifies the identity and
solidifies their false belief system. The addiction fuels the
negative self image and regenerates itself.
EMOTIONAL CHARACTER
DISORDERS
Narcissism is extreme self-centeredness, extreme polar
behaviors, lack of interest and empathy toward others in spite of an
uncontrollable desire for their admiration and approval. These people
are usually driven and perfectionistic. When they actually feel empty
and are filled with rage. They are envious of everyone around them.
Paranoid personalities are extremely defensive. They are
always on the alert, expecting and waiting for the betrayal and
humiliation from everyone around them. They are personally threatened
and on guard when there is no imminent threat. These people project
their fears onto others, and sabotage relationships along with their
own success. They see themselves as hopelessly defective.
Offender/Victimization -- these people have a compulsive
urge to repeat the offense; the repetition is compulsive. They
identify with the victim role and set themselves up to be taken
advantage of. They identify with their offender and reenact the
offense on helpless victims, as they once were.
Abuse -- Hurt People, Hurt People -- victims victimize while
the abused abuse others. People who abuse others and their children
physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually were typically
abused when they were young. The role of the abusive parent is played
out by the children upon the next generation. The reason the parents
continue the abuse is clearly defined by the term ‘identification’.
Internalized memories, both audio and visual, cause the offender to
model their parents action until the behavior is exposed and the
identification with the aggressor is broken.
The victims of abuse remain victims because of what we call
‘learned helplessness’. The victim believes they no longer have any
control and can not do anything to change conditions or themselves.
They do not believe they have a choice and are locked into a negative
belief system and passively accept their punishment.
The victims of sexual abuse produce a splitting of the self
as a defense mechanism because of the intense and crippling emotion.
Victims of sexual abuse often reenact their own sexual or physical
violation in an attempt to transfer the emotions to the victim. The
victimization of the innocent could be incest, molestation, rape,
voyeurism, exhibitionism, indecent liberties, or obscene phone calls.
Internal Imagery
And Identification
Emotions can be triggered by thought processes. The
stimulus comes from internalized images. These images come from
actual events or imaginary events. The emotional triggers come from
word images or sound imprints. When experiences are fused together,
they become connected with the emotion and are magnified. This
happens when the audio, visual, and a multiple of ‘like in kind’
emotional memories are fused together. It is in the fusion of
emotions to oneself that causes an identity crisis and we confuse who
we are with what we feel. The emotion is no longer an innocent signal
of an impending need; it becomes the core of our world view.
The emotion lays the foundation around which other feelings
about the self are experienced. If we do not resolve the emotional
issue, we will gradually lose consciousness of the emotion and our
views will be ‘skewed’. In this way, the emotion becomes basic to
one's sense of identity and the authentic self recedes into the
shadows.
Autonomous Emotions
Emotion functions autonomously, meaning emotions activate
without any external stimuli. Once internalized, there is no longer
any need for an interpersonal event. Memories alone can trigger an
emotion and we will experience the feelings with the same intensity of
the original event if we have not resolved the issue. There is a
secondary effect from not resolving emotional issues. We will not
return to our original state of emotional well being until we resolve
the issue at hand. We will stick at the higher awareness level and
our emotional flashpoint will take less and less time to reach. In
this way, the feeling will occur irrespective of the event. When we
identify our being with an emotion, we slowly become that emotion and
all events trigger the emotion.
Internal Emotional
Spirals
The internal emotional spiral has the most devastating
effect of emotional dysfunction. It is the basis for most mental and
emotional illness today. Once in motion, the ominous funnel cloud
whips the winds of emotions at the center of our being. It begins
with a simple event that triggers the emotion and, suddenly, out of
the memories we begin to whip ourselves until the emotion engulfs us.
Our eyes turn inward. Our reality skewed by the prevailing emotion
allows the thick clouds of denial to block the outside world of
reality. Memory upon memory trigger emotions endlessly, we relive the
precipitating event over and over internally, causing the emotion to
deepen and cloud our vision further; ... until memories engulf self
and emotion overrides the judgment of our conscience It is then that
we have lost the freedom to choose. The bondage holds the will
captive until we find a sanctuary from the storms of life.
The spiral, once in motion, blocks out reality. Without
knowing the truth we cannot hope to overcome our defectiveness as a
human being. If we say we have no sin, we are liars and the truth is
not in us. On the other hand, if we deny ourselves the right to make
mistakes we will have to defend ourselves. At the point we choose to
defend ourselves, the autonomous defense mechanism engages. This
reaction is a natural exercise of self-preservation. As we go into a
posture that triggers the defense mechanisms. They allow us to disown
the emotion. Then the internalized emotion will become less and less
conscious and we will lose more and more of our authentic self and
soon lose the child within. As the emotional spirals take control of
our rational thinking, it subjugates our will power to the emotion as
a stressor. Then we become reactive in our life and make our
decisions based on how we feel instead of faith in God’s promises.
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